Na Li scored arguably the most significant singles victory in the history of Chinese tennis by knocking the former US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova out of Wimbledon in the third round yesterday.

Li's 2-6, 6-2, 6-3 win over the tournament's fifth seed offered further confirmation that China is likely to be tennis's boom nation over the next decade. The 24-year-old Li had already got herself into the record books by getting herself seeded at 27 for Wimbledon, the first Chinese to be given a seeding at a grand slam.

At 30 in the world she is the highest ranked player the nation has ever had and yesterday's feisty win over Kuznetsova means she will put significant distance between her and her nearest countrywoman, Jie Zheng, ranked 37. Li and Zheng are two of six Chinese women currently ranked in the top 100 of the WTA rankings.

Yesterday's upset win is likely to be huge news in China, which received its first tangible success in the sport in 2004 when they won a gold medal in women's doubles at the Athens Olympics. Li is already a popular figure after bringing China its first WTA Tour singles title in Guangzhou in 2004.

Kuznetsova was runner-up to Justine Henin-Hardenne at Roland Garros earlier this month and has previously reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon and was expected to progress with little trouble against Li. However, the Russian's shotmaking went awry after she secured the first set and she seemed unable to cope with Li's hard hitting. By the third set Kuznetsova seemed to have lost grasp of her both her tactics and her timing. She was the first top 10 scalp of Li's career.

Li's feat in making the fourth round of a grand slam equals Zheng's run to the last 16 of the Australian Open in 2004 and both results are indicative of China's emergence as a tennis power. Some of the funding and expertise being poured into the sport is coming from Tennis Australia, which has rebranded itself as the grand slam of the Asia Pacific region.